Marriage and Divorce
Notes
Transcript
Can We Divorce?
Can We Divorce?
Good morning everyone…
Have you enjoyed your week?
Let me ask you a question: What made your days enjoyable this week?
Did you rejoice in your family? Did you rejoice that you were taken care of? Did you rejoice with each day that was given to you?
Finally, Did you rejoice in the Lord? He is the one that made all, and made all that you rejoiced in this week and in future weeks.
We cannot lose sight of praising the Lord, He is good! God is good…amen!
Well we are 13 days from our Christmas celebration! Christmas will be here before you know it.
Don’t forget we will have a Christmas Eve Service at 5pm on that Friday evening...
Now this morning we come back to the 19th chapter of Matthew and this chapter is just packed with material for us to grow into as we live in front of God.
The first of which is the religious leaders who come to Jesus to test Him, in truth they were hoping to trap Him in some measure of debate that they might condemn Him.
The question they bring is divorce… We will look at the first 9 verses to start with....
So lets look there at Matthew 19:1-9
1 Now when Jesus had finished these sayings, he went away from Galilee and entered the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. 2 And large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.
3 And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” 4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” 7 They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” 8 He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9 And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”
Now as we think about this, divorce is an issue, an event that has effected the lives of many, many folks through the years.
The reasons for divorce are many, some are acceptable and some are not. Please understand the intent of this message if not to make anyone feel condemned. That is not my job or place this morning… The Holy Spirit is the one who condemns us, pointing out our faults before God seeking to bring us to the point of repentance, that we might walk before God in a holy manner.
The purpose of this message is restoration and hope for those effected by this issue.
I am simply speaking the truth of the Scriptures doing my very best to communicate this precious Word faithfully.
So please do not feel that I am “picking” on any one.
So with that in mind, lets look at my first thought this morning...
1. They Brought a Test....
One thing we can often see in the Scriptures is this, the religious leaders often brought a test to Jesus. They would bring a controversial issue to Him hoping that they could find a point to condemn Him, and bring charges against Him.
So verse 1 tells us that Jesus (and with Him , His disciples) left area of Galilee which most likely implies are area around Capernaum and He comes south back into the area of Judea… this would be the territory that is associated with the tribe of Judah. So it is the land on the western side of the Jordan river.
Remember, Jesus is drawing ever closer to Jerusalem and His mission there.
And as they came into this area, verse 2 tells us that Jesus healed the sick. It is an interesting picture to see here, no matter where Jesus is, people came to Him. It also tells us that in those days and even today my friends, people turn to God for help with life’s struggles and problems.
They came to him because they believed He would receive them, that He would help them and bless them. No matter if they were the poor, the marginalized or those foreign to Israel. He received people and helped them, healed them and called them to follow Him.
How wonderful… He called the world to come to Him…so should we.
And as Jesus was serving those around Him.. we see the religious leaders came to him. Look at the text....
3 And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?”
So the Pharisees came to Him and in this text we know the most important word in this particular verse is the word “tested”. The word here refers to incriminate, or to trap Him in His interpretation.
And the topic they came asking about… Divorce...
The issue of divorce was a hot topic in the days of Jesus and it still is today. In truth it was part of a active debate between the two rabbinic schools of the Pharisees, the school of Shammai (Sham me-a) and Hillel (Hill-el).
Now to tell you why it was a debated topic falls back to Deut 24:1, Let me share this verse with you...
1 “When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house,
Now the school of Shammai focused on the word “Indecent” and took this to refer to the unfaithfulness, adultery. So they were saying that divorce was permitted according to Moses for the act of unfaithfulness of the wife.
Now the Hillel school was working very fast and loose with the passage and put their emphasis on the word ‘anything” and essentially the husband could divorce his wife for any act he deemed a deal breaker. If the food she prepared was burnt or bad lets say… out she went.. Really their way of thinking benefited the husband and was harder on the wife.
So in either of these cases the husband had the right to divorce his wife, by simply writing her a paper of divorce and sending her out of the house.
And in light of what they taught, they wanted to see if they could incriminate Jesus for His views.. as they asked the Question… “can a husband divorce his wife for any cause. v 3”....there you see, is the school of Hillel right or are we?
Here is the truth of the matter my friends, they (those religious leaders) didn’t care what Jesus thought, their wishes are evil.. they would continue to work and practice as they saw fit… They only sought to test Jesus.
Sadly, the truth is the same today… People will always abandon the whole truth of God’s word for their own pleasure, their own desires and their own ways…
Be certain my friends, God hates divorce… but the good news is this, forgiveness is possible. And God does permit divorce I think in some instances of sin, adultery, unfaithfulness and in the case of violence (mental or physical)
The majority of the world do not care about God or those around them… it is always about pleasing self.
Self will always be the enemy of God if we fail to live for Him. Here is a great truth for you to right down.... “It takes more courage to abide with God than to abandon God....”
Q.... Are you abiding with God? In your marriage today, are you still working on loving and honoring the one who said yes too or are you guilty of living for self?
Just a question for consideration...
Now lets move on to our second thought for today..
2. Marriage is God’s Institution....
Without a doubt we as the children of God must view marriage not as societies action or work, instead we must return to the view that Marriage is God’s institution.
The institution of marriage my friends is older than sin..think about that, God joined Adam and Eve as one flesh before the fall of man. and thus God instituted the institution of marriage.
And this is what Jesus begins to communicate to the religious leaders in response to their question.
Look at verses 4 thru 6
4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
Do you see what Jesus is doing? Jesus brings the Scriptures back to them, what they should know already and in doing so He quotes Genesis 1, ver 27 and Genesis 2 verse 24.
Jesus reminds them that God made two genders, at the beginning of creation, they were meant to compliment one another, bless one another and uplift one another and in the union of marriage, it was meant to be permanent.
Now it doesn’t mean everyone was meant to be married, but those who are it was supposed to last. And friends here is a truth that many forget today, marriage can only last if Christ is the center of the home. There is our problem today, people get marriage and they never let Jesus be Lord in their lives or in their homes.
Marriage is meant to be Christ filled and no one had the right to tear it up. As two joined there lives together there would no longer be me and mine.. they become one flesh in marriage.. the pronouns change, it is now we, us and ours … Why? a new entity has come to be....a home has been established.
There in is the challenge my friends, the home in marriage was designed to be forever… but sadly it does not...
And in light of God’s standard for marriage, the world teaches something completely different.
The world teaches us that everything is contractual, they say I am here as long as the other makes me happy… and when they don’t I’m out of here.
Life is more than a happy feeling and marriage is more than the honeymoon phase. Marriage is walking through the good and bad days of life as one flesh before God, honoring each other and the institution God has ordained.
Now I know there are times when the actions of others bring challenges to this institution, and without getting into that discussion today. Just know, God desires all people to be safe and whole.
In truth if Christ ruled peoples lives, we would not have violence, we would not have unfaithfulness and so forth. Lets put the problem back where it belongs, people would rather honor their own lust instead of Jesus.
Marriage is God’s ordained plan for man and woman. It started with Adam and Eve, man and woman and it continues today.
IN the words of scholar Craig Bloomberg, God wants all marriages to be permanent, we dare not do anything to jeopardize them.
Now just one last thought today
3. Man’s Objection.....
I want to share a truth with you my friends, one truth we must be careful with is this… Man always has objections to God’s ways for this world and its inhabitants.
Man is naturally out for self and selfish desires.... We see this exhibited time and time again through the Scriptures and of course through history.
The same is true in our passage today. As we look at the text, in response to what Jesus has said to those present, the religious leaders bring an objection in the form of a question...
Lets look at verses 7 to 9
7 They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” 8 He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9 And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”
They ask Jesus point blank, if your words are true, then why did Moses allow us to give a certificate of divorce and send our wife away?
First off let me just share this, the question they ask is not correct. As we looked at earlier they are debating the nature of Deuteronomy 24. This chapter itself isn’t speaking necessarily to the issue of divorce, but that divorce was prohibited from a woman who is previous divorced from her husband and re-married and then upon that marriage ending, she is prohibited from re-marrying her original husband.
Divorce was permitted…but they are trying to trap Jesus in their twist of Scripture… they do not realize that Jesus is the author of the Scriptures.
Now, lets do back to Jesus as He answers their question in verse 7...
Jesus points them back to the original problem, “...your hardness of heart is at the root of the problem.”
What does the term hardness of heart mean? They were unwilling to obey the nature of God’s law. My friends, God has made us from the beginning with a free will. He allows us to live for Him or live for the world.
And when we choose to live for the world and its corrupt ways, Understand God will hold us accountable for how we live.
In the state of a hard heart we refuse to listen and obey God and thus we rob ourselves and those connected to us of the perfect blessings God would otherwise have in store for us.
God has not made man and woman for divorce, He made us to either be single or to be married.
Now it is natural for us to see the world act in evil ways toward one another, it is natural to see the world lust after each other instead of learning what true love is and because of their failure, marriages end.
As the church we have been made new in Christ Jesus and we live with a higher standard upon our lives and as such it should not happen in the lives of His children.
Why does it? Because Christians do not live as Christians… There you go!
We have to remember we are called to live and be different.
So How do we do this?
A. It is to reflect God...As the children of God we are called to mirror our heavenly Father in our lives and all that we do… and becoming one flesh we find that we emulate His perfect picture of man and woman.
B. Remember Marriage is a Covenant - A covenant my friends is a promise, a godly promise that we choose, hear that .. we choose not to break. A covenant says I will always love you no matter what we do.. A Christ centered marriage is a covenant one.
C. Marriage fulfills the promise to be fruitful and multiply… that we bring children into this world, or bring children into our lives, our family that they might know the Father and find a sense of being complete.
D. It Glorifies God.... A Christ like marriage reveals to the world that HIs ways are still best. You don’t have to move into see if we are compatible. YOu dont ahve to do any of those things.
1. Let your dating life be part of the church life.
2. Praying together and separately will reveal if you are made for one another
3. Putting God first will always find His grace for each passing day.
Remember Peter calls us to ‘be holy because he is holy”....
Couples here today, live your lives so younger people see the beauty and glory of God’s first institution.
Amen..
Let us pray...
The Bible makes it abundantly clear that God hates divorce (Malachi 2:16) and that reconciliation and forgiveness should mark a believer’s life (Luke 11:4; Ephesians 4:32). However, God recognizes that divorce will occur, even among His children. A divorced and/or remarried believer should not feel any less loved by God, even if the divorce and/or remarriage is not covered under the possible exception clause of Matthew 19:9.
7 They shall not marry a prostitute or a woman who has been defiled, neither shall they marry a woman divorced from her husband, for the priest is holy to his God.